Karl's Story: Angels of Employment

Elder Roth met Karl at the Centerville Utah Employment Resource Center not long after Karl’s contractor superintendent construction job ended. Karl had worked in construction throughout his whole career and had an impressive amount of work experience. As a father, Karl was seriously concerned about his family’s financial situation.

Elder Roth, an employment resource center missionary from Utah, was assigned to help Karl look for work. While Karl was busy networking, looking for job leads, and sending out résumés, Elder Roth was busy networking and searching for job leads for Karl as well.

While he was searching, Elder Roth found several job leads that looked like they might fit Karl’s interests and skills. One of the job leads, a commercial construction superintendent position, came from a company that the employment resource center had been networking with. Elder Roth looked at the qualifications and felt that Karl would be a perfect candidate.

When Elder Roth saw the job description, he said to himself, “Hey, this fits him to a tee. All he has to do is go and get it.”

After Elder Roth told Karl about the job, they made a strategy of what Karl would do to get the job, which included addressing his résumé specifically to the company. Karl reworked his résumé and brought it back to Elder Roth the next morning.

They sent it off and anticipated the company would contact him soon to schedule an interview.

“We sent it in, and we didn’t hear back,” Karl said. “I almost thought that it was lost and the whole job opportunity was down the drain.”

Karl and Elder Roth saw that the company was no longer posting the position. Since the employment resource center had a networking relationship with the company, Elder Roth called the company to follow up with them about Karl’s application and to learn if they had filled the position.

To both Elder Roth and Karl’s surprise, the position was still open and the company was very interested in Karl and just had not contacted him yet.

Shortly thereafter, the company called Karl in for an interview. Karl felt that the interview went well. He waited for the company to call him back for the second interview, but the company did not call. Elder Roth decided to call the company again and found out the company was still considering Karl for the position. A short time later, the company contacted Karl and offered him a job.

After Karl got the job, the company told him how impressed they had been with Elder Roth’s gentle encouragement to keep Karl in the running.

“I appreciated him so much,” Karl said. “And there are other people over there that do the same thing. It makes you feel really worthwhile, because boy I tell ya, when you’re looking for a job and you’re not finding things, you get feeling pretty low, pretty discouraged. These guys were just like little angels.”